So this past week, I've been going about once a day to pick up loads of tomato and pepper donations from a local wholesaler. This is one of nine total loads we picked up, and we have community garden leaders coming all day every day picking up plants for their gardens. The backseat, passenger seat, floorboards, and center console are loaded with flats of peppers. 176 flats of plants in total! That's like, I don't even know how many plants.
Anyway, I wanted to share because HOLY TOMATOES and also because between early May and mid July (that time frame might vary some depending on your growing season), garden centers and wholesale greenhouses throw away tons and tons of seedlings, and if you give them a call, they are usually thrilled for you to take the plants that are too mature for the shelves off their hands. If you have a school garden, community garden, or just have a lot of space to plant, give your local greenhouse/garden center/plant wholesaler a call and see if they've got extras to donate. All the plants I picked up this week were a few days from being dumpstered (most of the big greenhouses don't even compost the plants or reuse/recycle the trays and pots).
Our gardeners always seemed so shocked that so many perfectly good plants get tossed every year, so I wanted to make sure ppk gardeners knew about this awesome source of free plants.
